Has this ever happened to you: You enroll in a Udacity course, start out strong and then life gets in the way, or the course becomes a little more challenging than you expected and your trajectory flips from skyward to wayward? In his article, “A Whole New U,” posted on Pacific Standard Magazine, Kevin Charles Redman recounts how he became frustrated mid-way through CS101 and how he overcame it. Do you have a similar story? Did you overcome your slump or are you still in it?
Udacity’s number one priority is our students. Everyday we hear feedback from our students, and we are listening. Currently, as we work to roll out another round of new courses — five of which will premiere June 25, 2012 — we have some questions for you, our students, about motivation.
Students are motivated to attend traditional universities and Udacity alike for a myriad a reasons: the experience, the love of learning, the opportunity to move away from home (not in Udacity’s case), or the opportunity to get a degree and ideally a job.
Motivation is also crucial on a smaller (but no less important) scale. What motivates you to complete the tasks required of a class, homeworks, quizzes, attending/watching lectures? Are you motivated by the employment potential that an education yields? Or does the satisfaction of solving a challenging problem keep you yearning for more knowledge? Or does a looming deadline get you across the finish line?
With these questions surrounding motivation in mind, Udacity would like to invite you to respond to any/all of them in the comments section below, on your own blog or by email, social@udacity.com. E-mail us a link to your blog post social@udacity.com or include it in the comments below.
With your feedback we will continue to work towards creating the most effective student-oriented class experience possible.
Our Questions for You:
- What motivates you to complete a Udacity course?
- How useful are deadlines?
- If you have not completed a course, what kept you from finishing it?
- What do you think Udacity could do to motivate you to complete a course?
